6 Consistency Hacks for Health & Fitness

I've hit my daily health and fitness targets for 73 days straight. Here's a few hacks I have used to stay consistent.

Nov 04, 2023

One of the greatest lessons of sobriety is that proper growth and improvement come from consistent, incremental improvements over extended periods.

I’ve never considered myself an overly consistent person. Still, there have been moments of reflection over the last 18 months where I have started to see how effective consistency can be.

It isn’t easy to articulate or measure because the improvement is so incremental. Still, anyone who has committed themselves to change one small behaviour every single day over an extended period will understand what I mean. It’s almost like you improve without noticing until you set time aside to reflect on your progress.

I was having my weekly catch-up with my nutritionist James Kuhn the other day when he said something that will shock fucking no one but something worth repeating anyway. His clients who demonstrated the most consistent behaviours were those who achieved the most consistent results.

This isn’t to say that the most consistent people achieved the best results. Someone who is consistently in a 100 caloric deficit will see less of an impact than someone who is inconsistent with their caloric deficit but averages a 500 caloric deficit daily. However, the consistent approach will almost always be easier to habituate, which should, in turn, lead to more significant long-term results.

Every day over the last 73 days and counting, I have achieved at least one or more of the below, and the health and fitness benefits that have come of it have been excellent.

30-minute run
40-minute bike ride
20,000 steps
500 calorie workout

It got me thinking maybe I am pretty consistent, or at least capable of being consistent when I put my mind to it. After my conversation with James, I wondered what roadblocks stand between us and being consistent and what behaviours are conducive to consistency.

You can not do something consistently if the behaviour isn’t sustainable. So often, we make the mistake of trying to implement unsustainable behaviours into our routines and then berate ourselves or see ourselves as a failure for not achieving some outlandish goal we’ve set for ourselves. Well, that’s what I have done anyway. I’ve found better results by switching my focus from metric-based goals to simply making sure I do a little bit every day.

Friction is the enemy of consistency. By friction, I mean these tiny little things that happen throughout the day that allow us to make a poor choice. They are small risks we expose ourselves to day in and day out that, without being aware of or being mitigated, can get in the way of us and whatever we are trying to achieve.

I actually had one of the worst weeks I have had since starting with James just last week, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to remind myself of what’s worked so well for me so far and to share those things with everyone in the hope that they might help them out a little too.

Wake Up at the Same Time Every Day

I used to be the kind of person who would wake up with only the exact amount of time I needed to get my shit sorted and arrive at work on time. In my industry, start times can vary depending on how far from work the job is, what time we get given access to the job and other such unimportant details.

So if it took me 57 minutes to get up, have a shower, fly around the house getting my shit together, jump in the car and get to work, that’s exactly how long I would set my alarm for before my start time.

These days, I am much more fortunate to manage my hours within reason, and most of my work is office-based. I understand this one might be hard to cop for the shift workers out there, and I thank you for the sacrifices made to keep society’s wheels turning. But if you are in a position to do so, try waking up at roughly the same time every day, regardless of what you have to do.

If it’s the consistency we are after, there’s no better way to kick things off than by starting our day at the same time each day. In my experience, I have found that my body reverse engineers my sleep and in time, I start to get sleepy and fall asleep around the same time every night anyway. I’ve done it for long enough now that I don’t recall the last time I woke up to my alarm. I kind of wake up.

The reason I think this one is so important is because by waking up at the same time each day, we give ourselves the same size window of time to get the shit done that we need to get done. The actual time doesn’t matter. It just needs to be consistent.

I like waking up early. I like getting to work before anyone else is there. I feel like it gives me time on my own to smash out all the monotonous, daily administrative shit that I have to do without anyone or thing bothering me. I must be home by 3 p.m. daily to look after my son. Through trial and error, I have worked out that if I get up at 4 a.m., I can usually get my eight hours of work in, 30-60 minutes of exercise and everything in between within that 11-hour window.

I know that as long as I am up and about by 4 a.m. every day, I have given myself the best opportunity to execute those daily habits that are important to me.

Grab ‘N’ Go Food

Yeah, yeah, everyone knows that meal prep saves time, yada-yada.

I won’t patronise you guys by preaching the benefits of meal prep. You’re smart enough to know about them already.

What I will say, though, is swapping out foods that take effort to prepare, require cutlery and for you to stop what you’re doing to eat for things you can grab and eat on the go has been hugely beneficial for me, and there are a few reasons why.

At home, we usually only cook two or three times a week. When we cook, we make enough for two or three days. I used to take these meals to work for lunch as well. What I found, though, was there was too much friction between me and eating them.

I promise it’s true. I didn’t want to waste time reheating them in the microwave, stopping what I was doing for 15 minutes to sit down and eat, then rinsing the container out, putting it back in my work bag, taking it home with the intention of getting it out of my work bag, forgetting it was there, finding it in there the next day, feeling gross etc.

Often, because I couldn’t be bothered with that process, I would take the meal for a field trip to work for the day and bring it back the next day for another try. That might sound great. I went all day without eating. Well done.

But when I do this, I get home, and I’m starving. My reasons for not eating my lunch were friction-related, not hunger-related. As soon as I would get home, I would gorge on anything quick and easy, which was often junk, and usually, I’d be so hungry from not eating all day that I’d end up overeating for the day just because a couple of hours of power in the afternoon.

That’s when I realised I’m far more likely to eat healthy food if I remove the friction between me and eating it. I have a smoothie for breakfast every day. I make three at a time. Not for any scientific reason but because that’s how many smoothies a full thermomix makes. I put them in protein shakers, take them to work and put them in the fridge or my car fridge. On Wednesday, I make another three. It takes me 20 minutes a week to make six servings of breakfast. On Sundays, we eat cooked breakfast because it’s good for the soul.

I swapped out the clutter of Tupperware containers full of food I was taking on field trips to work and back for fruit. I buy a week’s worth on the weekend and take all of it to work with me on a Monday morning and sit it in a bowl on my desk. I also have a 2-litre container of mixed nuts in the bottom drawer of my desk in case I ever get extra hungry.

By doing this, I don’t have to make any concerted effort to eat. Everything I need is close by; it’s all relatively healthy, and I can eat all of it while sitting at my desk while driving while listening in on a meeting. It also means that I can save time by not sacrificing work time to stop and eat, which means, in theory, I should be able to finish work half an hour earlier and get onto all the other shit I have to do.

Most importantly, though, it means I don’t avoid eating throughout the day, which means I avoid that afternoon binge where I’m at risk of going from a good caloric deficit to a surplus in one sitting.

I’m not suggesting people should do exactly as I do. Instead, think about why you do or don’t eat what you eat when you eat it. Are there any small changes or swaps you can make that are more conducive to eating better?

Pack Your Shit

I dedicate an hour or so each Sunday afternoon to casually folding washing while paying partial attention to whatever shit is on the TV at the time. I find it somewhat cathartic.

I have everything itemised in clothing types for each person in the house. Our folding table/occasional dining table usually ends up covered in itemised piles of clothing items.

I have a big overnight-style bag. Not big enough to travel overseas with, but big enough for a long weekend away kind of set-up.

When I finish the folding, I bring my bag out to the folding/dining table, and I put 5x gym kits, 5x gym gits and 5x gym towels in my bag, and then I put that bag in my car.

What this does is give me options. Usually, I shower at work, mostly because I can and because I don’t want to wake my toddler up at 4 a.m. unnecessarily. When I get to work, I unpack the work kits in a cupboard I have. Then I take my bag back to my car. My various runners all live in my car, too.

By doing this, I am ridding myself of excuses not to exercise. I have everything I need. Whether I want to run on a trail, treadmill, or bike path or go to the gym, there is no reason why I can’t.

It also means that I have no reason to go past home in between work and exercise, which has always been a trap for me and, I assume, many others. I couldn’t tell you how often I have gone home to get workout gear with the full intention of getting changed and heading straight back out, only to find myself on the couch 15 minutes later eating a potato chip sandwich like the mature adult I am. Once that happens, exercise is out of the question.

It’s just about being prepared and mitigating risk.

Do Things at Times That Suit You

I do a 15-minute stretching routine every single morning. Not because I enjoy it. In fact, I fucking hate it, but that’s why I need to do it. I do it first thing in the morning because I know that if I don’t get it out of the way, I won’t do it at all. I also know that if I want to keep running and exercising, I need to do it because I’m getting old, and my body is paying me back for years of avoiding stretching and recovery.

I do my exercise after work before I get home. I know I should do it first thing in the morning. I know it would make me feel great mentally. But I wouldn’t say I like it. My body hurts in the morning. It takes me a few hours of movement for those aches and pains to dissipate.

So, I exercise later in the day when it feels like my body has freed itself up a little more. This means sometimes I have to run in the hottest part of the day or go to the gym at times when it’s a little busier than I like, but we can’t have it all.

I know that if I get it done in the morning, I eliminate the risk of talking myself out of exercising throughout the day or getting too sidetracked by work and running out of time in the day. Still, the truth is that I enjoy exercising more when I feel better. I feel better later in the day. The more I enjoy something, the more likely I will show up and do it again tomorrow.

Create Accountability

Unless you’re new here, you know I’m massive on accountability and tracking my key habits. For me, key habits are the set-and-forget behaviours that I know if I do each day, everything will be okay.

The first thing I do each morning when I turn my computer on is set my Pomodoro timer. The second thing I do is fill out my daily habit tracker spreadsheet. It’s an opportunity every morning to enter and analyse my objective data. It forces me to be honest with myself and show me exactly where I have done well and where I am slacking off.

I think we often fall short because we’re not entirely aware of precisely what’s going on. Doing that daily data entry means you have no excuse for not knowing where you are at. Unless I am interested to see how much progress I have made or haven’t made in a particular area, I rarely go back and look at my tracker from previous months. Although the data is handy, I genuinely think the most significant benefit is that it gives you that five minutes where you have no choice but to be honest with yourself about whether or not your actions have been aligned with your goals.

Because I’m a bit of a fancy fucker, I even used conditional formatting to colour-code my sheet. Green means good, yellow means okay, and red represents bad. That tiny little hit of dopamine every time I enter some data and the cell turns green is a nice little treat. It also creates a bit of a colour map on my whole spreadsheet where if I see an area full of red, I can take a closer look and figure out why I’m struggling in a particular area. Likewise, for the green sections, I can try to identify the behaviours that have led to that green area and ensure I continue to execute them. Sometimes entering a number into my spreadsheet that I’m not overly proud of can be the exact kick up the arse I need to get myself motivated again.

I also like to turn specific columns into line graphs to check how certain metrics are trending with just a glance. Maybe I’m a bit over the top and a bit of a data nerd, but so far, it’s working a treat.

I think data is underutilised, and the more we have, the more of an accurate picture we can create. What’s the point of making these changes in our behaviour if we’re not capturing accurate, objective data to see if the changes have been worth the effort?

If you don’t know how to create one, there are thousands of habit-tracking templates available online to suit all sorts of people and goals. If you want a copy of mine, let me know, and I’ll gladly send it. If that’s too hard, use a fucking whiteboard like I used to.

You should be grateful these blogs aren’t handwritten…

Change the Scope, Not the Process

Yes, I stole this line from Mindset Coach to the Stars, Ben Crowe. But what the fuck does it mean?

It means that a little bit is better than none. It means that if you want to exercise every day but only have ten minutes spare, then exercise for the fucking minutes.

If you’re trying to write or read a book but only have time to write and read a couple of pages that day, then do just that.

Consistency creates momentum, and momentum is hard to break. If you’re anything like me, often a rest day or a bad day of eating turns into a rest week or a bad week of eating.

I used to be an idiot, I still am, but I used to be more of an idiot. When I was training for marathons and the like, if I didn’t have time to go for a 10k run, I wouldn’t run at all. I was concerned people would think less of me if they saw on Strava that I’d only run four kilometres that day. Like, what’s the fucking point of that?

I realised how ridiculous this was, and that’s why I changed my daily goals to the more achievable and sustainable goals mentioned at the top, and it’s fucking worked. Training consistently has made it easier for me to eat consistently, which means I have lost all the weight I put on when I was injured, you guessed it, consistently.

It also does wonders for your self-esteem. On a day when you only have that ten-minute window to get something done, would you rather lay down to go to sleep and think, “I had a hectic day and although it was disappointing that I wasn’t able to spend an hour at the gym/reading my book/studying/whatever, I was still able to get that ten minutes in and I’m proud of myself for doing what I could in the window of time available” or “I really regret not at least doing a little bit in that time I had”?

This isn’t some revolutionary shit, and I am not an expert. I just figured out a system that works for me and has enabled me to hit my daily targets every day for over ten weeks now.

This post isn’t about health, fitness, diet, or whatever.

This post is about looking deeper into what’s causing the friction between yourself and what you’re trying to achieve. It’s about eliminating risk. It’s about identifying the small sources of friction between yourself and what you want to do and eliminating as many of them as possible.

Write down your goals for the week. Come back to them a week later. Highlight the ones that you struggled to achieve or didn’t achieve. This exercise isn’t about feeling like a failure. It’s about improving. Can you identify anything that tripped you up, like me coming home before going out to exercise once did? Did you buy shitty food at work that you didn’t want because you weren’t organised enough to take food from home?

Take each highlighted goal. Write it in the middle of a piece of paper. Around the goal, write the reasons why you struggled with it. Around the reasons, write down some things you could do to mitigate those risks. Dedicate some time over the weekend to setting yourself up for success for the following week, then do the same exercise the next week and see how you went. Keep doing it until you find a happy balance between being a regimented fucking psychopath like myself and wherever it is that you are satisfied.

Hopefully, this has helped someone.

Cheers Wankers.

What hacks have you used to help you consistently execute healthy or productive daily behaviours? I’d be keen to try to implement some myself.